


The Hound and the Moon

by misura



Category: Sword Song - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Animal Transformation, Background Relationships, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 11:57:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14769155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: In which Angharad is indeed a witch, though not by any covenant with the Horned One.





	The Hound and the Moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chantefable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chantefable/gifts).



> attempt #2, with bonus magic and talking dogs, because why aim for some semblance of historical accuracy when you can have a talking dog instead? still no on-screen kissing, but more hand-holding than fic #1
> 
> picks up and diverges from canon around chapter 21

As the days lengthened and warmed, it seemed to Bjarni that Gwyn's health improved, and where once he had looked at Gwyn and seen an old man, now it seemed to Bjarni that Gwyn was not so very old after all. Older than Bjarni himself, of a certainty, but younger than the Grandfather.

From time to time, he would return to find Angharad sitting close by Gwyn's side, speaking in a foreign tongue that sounded somewhat like the one she used when preparing her medicine. Other times, he would find them both silent, hands touching, content to have each other's company. It was a small thing, and understandable, in view of how long Angharad must have known Gwyn, and yet it drove home to Bjarni how briefly he had known Angharad himself, how little time had passed since he had arrived on her doorstep with Hugin and the memory of the _Sea Cow_ , downed with all her crew.

He took it into his mind that perhaps in another week, he should leave.

"After all, with Gwyn well again, she hardly has a use for me," Bjarni told Swallow, as he brushed her mane while Hugin sat and guarded the stables against mice and the ducks, who liked hiding their eggs in the straw, where Swallow would step on them.

Swallow tried to nose his hand. Only the other day, Bjarni had fed her an apple.

"True, she said there were more men than Gwyn here once when her father still lived," Bjani went on. "And I suppose it's a pleasant enough life, close to what would await me home."

Hugin barked as one of the ducks ventured too close.

"Perhaps I should ask her. After all, she would know better than me."

Swallow snorted, as if she already knew what would come of Bjarni's plans.

 

Bjarni stayed for the harvest preparations and the harvest itself, and then came a night when Rhywallan came calling, of whom Angharad had told him, two pale hounds in his wake.

 _"A fine white night for hunting,"_ Rhywallan had said, and Bjarni had felt cold, then hot - Hugin had growled, and then the smell of blood had been in his nose, the scent of iron and violence, as the pale hounds had been upon the two of them in a confusion of claws and teeth.

He had, in that moment, felt something other than human, and when he woke in the place Gwyn had held occupied for so long, the memory was with him still.

 

"What happened?" It was Gwyn who had brought him food, not Angharad. Bjarni felt hurt, as if Angharad had judged the wounds he had sustained in her defense not worth her personal attention. "Is Hugin all right?"

Gwyn smiled. "He is well. Rhywallan could hardly have expected to meet so staunch a pair of defenders. She is with him now," he added, which soothed Bjarni's mood.

"I felt - " began Bjarni, then bit his lip, for this was a question he would ask of Angharad, not Gwyn, who had not been there, to see.

"She changed you," Gwyn said. "Briefly, from what you were born as to what was in your heart. It is of no consequence. You should not let it worry you overmuch."

Bjarni doubted not that the advice was meant kindly. Still, it made him want to speak with Angharad all the more. "Is she a witch in truth, then?"

"She is my mistress," said Gwyn. "As well as yours, should you wish it so, but not, if you do not. Unlike Rhywallan, who binds men and women according to his whim, the Lady Angharad will take naught but the willing."

Bjarni thought of the pale hounds, and how Rhywallan had set them on him and Hugin with a whistle, and he shivered.

 

Bjarni's wounds were shallow, his recovery swift. One morning, he woke feeling well and rose, to find Angharad sitting besides a dark-haired stranger whose left hand missed a finger.

She looked up as he walked in, smiling, as did the stranger, who Bjarni slowly realized was no stranger at all.

"It is easier, sometimes, to heal someone when they have taken on a human shape," she said. Her tone suggested she considered it an explanation, though it left Bjarni with more questions than ever.

"He will be well?" Bjarni asked, then, as he realized Hugin must be able to understand him, "You will be well?"

"So I have been assured, by one who would surely know," said Hugin, extending his right hand.

Bjarni grasped it, sitting down, accepting the bowl of food Angharad handed him.

"I must see to Gwyn," said Angharad, leaving the two of them alone.

 

Two nights thereafter, the ducks came and woke Bjarni, splashing water on his face. The moon had not yet given way, and by its pale light, Bjarni saw a collection of lights coming from the village in the direction of the farm.

Gwyn was nowhere to be found, though Angharad waited for him outside, and Hugin, who came to Bjarni's side immediately, and two horses: Swallow, and a dark stallion, whose eyes were wild.

The ducks quacked nervously.

Angharad sighed. "Alone, I might have stayed and faced them."

 _And been murdered,_ thought Bjarni, though he knew her words had been sincere. This was her home, after all, and for all that he had spent these past five years a sell-sword and wanderer, Bjarni knew well the value of having a home, a place to call one's own.

"Can you not turn them into mice or the like?" he said, only half-joking.

"Then I would really be what they accuse me of being, and deserve the burning," Angharad said. "No. Rhywallan has won. He will take this land, that was my father's, and call it his own, now that I will no longer be there to deny him."

The dark stallion hung its head and Hugin whined softly.

 

During the days that followed, it were only the ducks that spoke, and that quietly, among themselves.

Angharad rode as one who was dead, or enthralled, robbed of her soul and free will, incapable of doing aught another had not prompted her to do. Bjarni disliked seeing her thus, but try as he might, he found little that might uplift her spirits, save to remind her that they were all of them hale. They had come away with their lives and the horses and the ducks, and so the only thing Rhywallan had won by his actions was the land.

"And there is always more land to be found, if one has the wish for it and the will to work it and turn it into a steading," Bjarni said, remembering the blue glass dolphin he had buried.

"Provided one does not mind neighbors," said Angharad. "To help with the building and trade with, and call on, in times of hardship."

"Come with me to Rafnglas, then." Bjarni had been of a mind to return; he felt he had delayed the thing long enough. His pride, which had prickled at the idea of racing back one his five years were up, now urged him to show all those who had watched him go that Bjarni Sigurdson lived, still, and had not done so very ill for himself that he feared showing his face again. "The Chief is a fair man, and just. He'll not judge you for what you are, only for what you do."

"It sounds to me that you have decided already," Angharad said.

"As I have pledged my sword-service to you, it would be an ill thing did I not counsel you as best I could," said Bjarni. "Come. You need rest and peace, and at Rafnglas, we may find both."

"Lead you the way, then, and I shall follow for a while longer," Angharad said.

The dark stallion snorted, as if to say, _this will not last long, for my mistress is not normally one so meek as to follow where a man leads her_ , and Bjarni, agreeing, bent his head to hide his smile.

 

Rafnglas had both grown and shrunk in Bjarni's absence. There were more people, more steadings, and yet even as Bjarni felt his heart ease at the sight of those sights still familiar, he also sensed that inside of him, something had shifted, so that he would be content no longer, to make a life for himself here, of nine months' farming and three months' trading and raiding.

Nevertheless, it was home. Gram welcomed him, and Ingibjorg, though she regarded Angharad with small and narrowed eyes.

"I would meet the Chief," Angharad said, after some while of small talk, causing Ingibjorg's mouth to tighten, though nothing was said - nor would be, Bjarni suspected, until such time as he and Angharad would be well away and there would be no risk of being overheard and gainsaid.

Most sorry to take his leave was Hugin, who had found his welcome by one of Astrid's bairns friendly enough and had found a shared fondness for yipping at the ducks, who pretended to ignore the hounds as long as they sat quietly and made neither sound nor movement.

 

Bjarni was granted a place to sleep in the Hearth Hall. Though the long journey had wearied him, he found himself kept awake by thoughts of the future.

He might take his leave of Angharad, though he wished it not, and flattered himself that she did not wish it, either. Still, she would not require a swordsman bound to her service in Rafnglas, not with Rafn the Chief personally having pledged himself to her safety so long as she would choose to stay under his roof, or elsewhere in the settlement.

After the way she had been treated elsewhere, she might well decide to stay and bake her bride-cake here, to pledge herself in turn. Her use for Bjarni Sigurdson would grow even less, then, for as a wife, she would not lack companionship, nor would it be proper for the Chief's wife to seek such.

Hugin whimpered in his sleep, as if to say, _How do you go on, making assumptions left and right about people with a will of their own._

Bjarni smiled and stroked his ears until such time as it was only Hugin's paws that moved, speeding him over dream-hills to chase dream-rabbits.

 

"Were I of a mind to marry and she of a mind to stay, I might envy you," Rafn said. He had sought Bjarni out that morning, inviting him to inspect the longships with him.

"Were you of a mind to leave and she of a mind to marry, I might return the feeling," replied Bjarni.

Rafn laughed. The gold and silver of his hair made Bjarni think he was of an age with Gwyn, which made him wonder what animal Angharad might draw forth from Rafn's heart.

"She has chosen well in you, I think. And who knows, one day, I might be Chief no longer and join you on the road, assuming you may have a use for bones as old as mine."

"You would be welcome," Bjarni said, surprised to find himself sincere.

"Five years ago, you would have spoken quite differently," said Rafn.

"Five years from now, you will find my feelings unchanged," Bjarni promised.


End file.
